Old Trademark Issue

http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2010/01/28/comic-book-legends-revealed-245/

This article link contains a verification of truth regarding a comic trademark legend. The issue deals with Marvel having lost or rather abandoning The Champions trademark to a role playing game company that made a comic using the trademark. This is actually a funny story that I had forgotten, even though it was brought up just a few years ago. Now while Marvel/Disney could try to pay for the rights for the trademark, or at least pay the company to stop renewing the trademark, I don't see them doing that right now. The possibility of bad press for even trying to attempt such a measly buyout for a trademark that isn't that well known to the general public makes me think they might not try until two decades from now.

The Reason I brought this article to the class's attention mainly has to do with the factors we didn't really cover in class. One thing is that trademarks can be bought out but at often a hefty price. Another reason is Disney recently officially bought Marvel for 4 billion dollars and thus they like any company want good solid copyrights and trademarks, thus they might try to register a lot of trademarks soon. A trademark has to do with public exposure the total opposite of privacy. My final reason is while it isn't recent it is relevant to the course.

NFL Says They Own the Rights to "Who Dat" slogan

The NFL is claiming trademark infringement over the use of the phrase “Who Dat’ in t-shirts. The NFL is sending cease-and–desist letters to several T-shirt makers in New Orleans demanding that they stop selling the shirts with the slogan. The league says, “the shirts, some of which use the “Who Dat?’ slogan along with the Saint’s fleur-de-lis logo, infringe on a legal trademark.” However Saint fans are saying the NFL cannot trademark a phrase that has been around for 150 years. The chant has been around longer then the Saints. While the origin to the phrase is unsure. Some claim it came about in the late 19^th century in vaudeville routines. It was also used in a Marx Brothers' performance “ Who Dat Man.” The chant,“ Who dat say dey gonna beat dem Saints,’ is shorten for signs and shirts. It has been used to cheer for the Saints since the 1980s. Republican Senator David Vitter wrote a letter to NFL commissioner Roger Goodell asking the league to concede that the slogan is public domain. Vitter said, “ Please drop your present ridiculous position or sue me.”

I personally think it is a bad move on behalf of the NFL. The league claims it is just a big understanding. However as soon as Tom Benson, owner of the Saints, found out they were going to the Super bowl he applied for a "Who Dat" trademark. I think fans believe in their team and want to support their team using a slogan they cherish. While the NFL,of course, just wants to secure profits.

White House backs FBI use of records

The FBI has acknowledged that they obtained phone records without any formal legal process or court oversight. Without this formal legal process or court oversight this is a violation of first right amendments to a civialian's privacy. However, who is going to deo anything about it with the white house administrtaion backing up this type of action? Do you feel that this is in violation to privacy?

Repo Car Incident

On January 15 2010, in San Jose California, a repossession inccident occured. Isabel Leuvano left her car parked in her ex-husband's driveway waiting outside to pick up her daughter, while Alberto Luna jumped in the running car and drove off. Alberto Luna, owner of Alberto's Auto Sales, repossessed the car due to Isabel being behind in her payments. Little did he know that her 2-year-old son was sleeping in the back seat.

An hour and a half later police officers found the child, the same time that Luna realized that there was a child in the car. No kiddnapping charges were made. In some ways this viloates the right to privacy and tresspassing. However, there is no law in California that states a repossession has to take place in a public place or that they have to give warning before hand.

Privacy was violated becuase Luna had to know where to find Isabel outside of her own home. He had to be watching her to know her schedule, to know where she would be at certain times of the day. He also had to be following her. As for tresspassing, Luna did take the car on private property. What do you think? Were privacy issues and tresspassing an issue here?

Grand Mufti of Egypt Denounces Use of Religious Ringtones

A growing trend among Muslim cell phone owners is the use of verses from the Quran or the Muslim prayer call for ringtones. The Grand Mufti of Egypt and the country‘s highest religious legal authority, Mufti Ali Gomaa, is denouncing the use of Muslim prayer or verses from the Quran as cell phone ringtones. Mr. Gomma says, “ It trivializes the word of God and violates the sanctity of the divine words.” The Grand Mufti issued a fatwa, Islamic religious ruling, about the religious ringtones after he received inquiries regarding its appropriateness.

The Arabic and Muslim new site Al Arabiya quoted the fatwa saying, “Picking up the phone is sure to interrupt the verse and this is disrespectful to the holy book. Prayer calls should not be used as ringtones because it might confuse people and make them believe it was actually time for prayer.”

I found this blog from the Wall Street Journal interesting because I think as a culture we tend to take for granted the freedoms we have, especially pertaining to First Amendment rights. Obviously other countries and cultures don’t exercise these same rights. And while it might not be in good taste to quote bible excerpts as cell phone ringers, we can still do it.

http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2010/01/22/a-fatwa-against-muslim-prayer-ringtones/?mod=

Social Networking and Copyright Laws

So from the class discussions and the posts that people have been posting it seems that Facebook has run into some issues pertaining to privacy, copyright infringement, and other issues involving marketing/advertising companies illegally using content from user pages. With that being said I got the idea of trying to research how the law may interact or conflict with the use of social networking sites.

I Googled "Social Networking and Copyright" which led me to a very useful link right at the top of the list. This link: http://technology.findlaw.com/articles/00006/010966.html gives a very informative account of laws and how it deals with social networking in regards to copyright infringement.

The most interesting thing I found is that there is a statute that protects the site itself from any responsibility as to what users post. So in situations where a users my be uploading data, whether it be photos or music, which could be in violation of copyright laws the site itself is not at fault. The fault falls on the user, which I can see but I found it interesting that the site itself is clear of being held accountable. I would figure that they can't control what a user does but you'd think they could monitor it which I would think make them some what accountable.

Facebook resists records subpoena

A former St. Louis police officer has filed a suit in Madison (Ill.) County Circuit Court in Edwardsville (just across the river from St. Louis) to force Facebook to release information about 23 Facebook users who are investigating or might have witnessed a shooting at a bar in November 2008. Bryan Pour, the officer who was off-duty at the time of the shooting, was fired by St. Louis police after he shot at a man at a bar. The lawyer for the officer was quoted in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch as saying, "We believe law enforcement had pre-existing and subsequent relationships with material witnesses" that will show up on Facebook accounts.

Facebook spokesmen have said that company policy prohibits them from commenting on individual Facebook user accounts. Facebook lawyers have said in the past that the social network is prohibited by federal law from disclosing information. Facebook contends that defendants' requests for Facebook information are "hopelessly overbroad and vague."

I'm sure that Facebook gets these requests in tons of legal cases, and obviously, not all can be granted. In most cases, I don't think these requests should be granted. Each case should be judged on its merit. Perhaps in a murder case, the information might be released. In a bar shooting when no one was killed, no.

Lawsuit targets 'rip-off' of 'Catcher in the Rye'

Reclusive author J.D. Salinger has emerged, at least in the pages of court documents, to try to stop a novel that presents Holden Caulfield, the disaffected teen hero of his classic "The Catcher in the Rye," as an old man.

Lawyers for the author of "Catcher in the Rye" call "60 Years Later: Coming Through the Rye" a rip-off.

Lawyers for Salinger filed suit in federal court this week to stop the publication, sale and advertisement of "60 Years Later: Coming Through the Rye," a novel written by an author calling himself J.D. California and published by a Swedish company that advertises joke books and a "sexual dictionary" on its Web site.

"The Sequel infringes Salinger's copyright rights in both his novel and the character Holden Caulfield, who is the narrator and essence of that novel," said the suit, filed Monday in U.S. District Court in New York.

full story at http://www.cnn.com/2009/SHOWBIZ/books/06/03/salinger.catcher.lawsuit/index.html?iref=allsearch

I went and researched a little bit more into this subject, and on many of the web pages there are equally hot and cold comments left bypeople saying that since its an entirely new story with similarities to "Catcher", there should be no reason why a federal judge would rule to ban the US publication of the book since, according to some, it is merely a derrivative work. For others, for example a blogger on another website who was responding to a different article on the same subject, said people think "that only verbatim copying can constitute "copying" for purposes of an infringement/fair use analysis. This is simply not the case. There are two forms of similarity that are relevant - "fragmented literal similarity" (actual copying) and "comprehensive non-literal similarity." If you take enough of another person's work, even if it isn't literal expression, it can rise to the level of actionable copying." This is not to say that any work cannot be influenced by another work, however respectable dues have to be credited for an author's original work. And while there are certain people who would say that Mr. California doesn't copy word for word Mr. Salinger's work, it does seem he wants to exploit the value of Holden Caulfield by Salinger and has not been sufficiently transformative of his story to claim fair use.


My favorite response concerning copyright law was from some guy who wrote:

"There goes my trilogy book deal, Duke of the Bracelets, about Freddo Baggets' journey to destroy his "one bracelet to govern them all", on the Isle of Martyr where the silhouttes lie."

Sometimes a picture can be worth a thousand....or more.

AP

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-01-29/obama-hope-artist-fairey-may-plead-the-fifth-in-ap-lawsuit.html

This week a Manhattan judge announced that there is currently a criminal investigation going on involving Shepard Fairey and his wife Amanda – who are accused of one of the most well known copyright cases of 2009. Fairey may be invoking his 5^th amendment rights not to answer legal questions as this investigation is under way.

This case involves a work of art that can be seen in the homes, streets, and apparel of Americans across the country and throughout the rest of the world. The image is a patriotic stenciled drawing of Barack Obama, and it became a symbol of “hope” and “change” throughout his presidential campaign. Fairey created the famous poster image, and it currently hangs in the National Portrait Gallery in Washington. The problem is that the Associated Press claims that Fairey took the original image (taken by an AP photographer) from them without permission, and used it to create his poster. Fairey is under fire not only for that, but for also providing false evidence in court to mislead them on where he obtained this image from.

This case really interests me because I worked in the online photography news industry for a year, where I gained rights and clearances to use AP photos every day. My company had a subscription with AP, and we could browse their site and download the photos we wanted. Our subscription was EXTREMELY expensive. Newspapers pay a lot of money to use agency images and I don’t think many people realize this. One might wonder, why would this cost so much, it’s just a photo? The bottom line is that the photographers who shot these pictures worked hard and they deserve compensation. People grab images from the web all the time to use on their blogs and websites, and they often don’t have permission. This is a recurring problem for photographers today because everything they do is on the web. But if you are using someone’s image to make money, you need to compensate the person who provided the photographic work. It’s the same as stealing music online. It happens all the time, even though it’s illegal. But if you are going to make millions, like this guy did, you should probably consider getting permission; it will save you millions in the end. These people will come after you, and I would not mess with the AP.

Chinese Female Writer Sues Google

I read an article about a writer in Beijing who sued Google for publishing an entire copy of her novel, "Acid Lover." Google did not ask for her permission or pay her. Mian Mian, the author, is extremely upset with Google for "only showing respect regarding copyright protection to famous American publishing houses." She is asking for $8,785 US dollars for economic and mental compensation. The China Written Works Copyright Society (CWWCS) claim Google has scanned 18,000 books by 570 Chinese writers without permission. If Mian Mian wins this lawsuit, it could open up many lawsuits for the other writers.

I feel that Google completely disobeyed the Copyright laws by displaying Mian Mian's work publicly. The novel was her original work and Google should have asked for her permission. Since her book was published by the Shanghai Joint Publishing Company, Mian Mian's rights to her books (through the publishing company), belong solely to her.

This one hits close to home...Clean Coal and Wash U

Wash U is part of a group called the Consortium for Clean Coal Utilization. They've got a nice little website and some major sponsors (their website identified Peabody Energy, Arch Coal, and Ameren as lead sponsors). The CCCU's stated purpose is to to "foster the utilization of coal as a safe and affordable source of energy, and as a chemical feedstock, with minimal impact on the environment."

Well, an environmental activist named Brian DeSmit launched a spoof site painting the consortium's goals and visions in an unfavorable light.

Peabody energy sent a demand letter to Mr. DeSmit basically telling him to shut down the entire site, first citing copyright infringement, but then also getting into what else they felt was wrong with the site.

DeSmit's lawyer has since sent a response letter and the legal wrangling continues. I don't think Peabody has a leg to stand on and it's my belief that they were just trying to scare/bully DeSmit into taking down a website they don't like. DeSmit never purports to be a part of the organization and even has a statement on the site saying "This website is not endorsed by or connected with Washington University and the 'Clean Coal' Consortium."

To decide for yourself or just read more, visit the following link.

http://www.citmedialaw.org/threats/peabody-energy-corporation-v-desmet#description

Truman Student Tweets anti-Semitic threats

Story from the Index, Truman State University's campus newspaper

Beginning of the story:
Sophomore Rachel Oetting found her Tweets popping up on anti-hate speech Web sites last week.
Oetting Twittered the offending post on Jan. 11, which said, "Can we go on a jew killing spree soon? i need to release some anger and jews are always worthy targets."

As a recent grad of Truman, and a former staff member on the school's newspaper, I found this story extremely relevant to what we have been talking about in class. I think the most interesting aspect of the story is Truman's part in the matter. The school's Conduct Code does not have a speech code, but it does cover threats of violence and harassment. No disciplinary action has been taken against the student, and I don't think there will be. Truman is stuck in a difficult situation: while they do not encourage hate speech, they do encourage every students' freedom of speech. Taking action against the student would seem to cause more harm then good--creating a debate between the school's right to discipline the student, and the student's right to say what she wants.

Abolish patents or What the Huffington Post Suggests

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-k-levine/save-the-whales-abolish-p_b_434595.html

This article focuses on the problems intellectual property patents can cause. These problems are something the average person needs to know more about, especially with invention shows around like Shark Tank. Now often times I, like probably everyone else, look at the pros that come from protecting inventive or unique ideas through copyright or trademarks or patents; the problem is getting a hold of the rights before someone else. What I mean by that is basically that a lot of things can't even be physically created or developed due to someone having secured the rights through some means for example like publishing a paper or blue print. The author of the article, David K. Levine, while using a ridiculous title for his blog entry, makes some valid points. One of the better examples clearly shows a con of patents, which is that patents owned by a opposing company or person can and often do scare off investors.

While I don't agree completely with the author on all points, especially the complete abolishing of patents, I do think we can do somethings about patents. One thing is embracing the public domain, what I mean by this is letting rights and patents into the public domain after a certain amount of time, that includes characters like Mickey Mouse, Spider-Man & Superman and Archie & Scooby-DOO. Note this public domain idea, probably won't happen. A more realistic thing that can be done is creating a time limit on patents where if a person or company doesn't do something to exploit or physically create an item with in the time limit then they lose the patent.

Weight Watchers is suing Jenny Craig

Weight Watchers is suing Jenny Craig over false and misleading advertising. The Jenny Craig ad features the spokeswoman Valerie Bertnelli in a lab coat saying, “ A major clinical trial shows Jenny Craig clients lost, on average, over twice as much weight as those on the largest weight-loss program,” referring to Weight Watchers.

An article in the Wall Street Journal says Weight Watchers filed a complaint in the federal New York court. Weight Watchers is saying Jenny Craig conducted no study and is manipulating and twisting the findings of 10-years-old Weight Watcher study, which isn’t even relevant. The Weight Watcher suit is seeking injunctive relief and damages.

Another article and segment aired on ABC news mentioned Jenny Craig continues to stand behind their message. The company believes that when the court hears all the evidence the courts will side with them. Jenny Craig thinks the courts will ultimately agree that Jenny Craig’s advertising claims are truthful. The article also mentions that a federal judge has issued a temporary restraining order preventing Jenny Craig from showing the ad. The action taken by the federal judge is being labeled as an unusual action in a commercial libel suit.

I think Weight Watchers has the right to be upset. The supposed study Jenny Craig refers to is 10 years old and most definitely out of date. The ABC news article also mentioned a question in their article, which I think make a lot of sense. The questions being as the case continues to persist will the ad be deemed false and misleading and will an ordinary person be impacted by Jenny Craig’s ad’s claim?

http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20100119-709765.html

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/weight-watchers-sues-jenny-craig-ad-featuring-valerie/story?id=9622727&page=1

FBI Digitally Edits Photo of Osama bin Laden

Last week the FBI released a digital picture of what they believe Osama bin Laden would look like today. However they used a photo of Spanish politician Gaspar Llamazares and a younger picture of bin Laden and to get the digital photo. Llamazares is extremely angry with the FBI for posting this picture which will now make it hard for him to travel. The FBI never asked if it was alright to use his photograph that is now posted all over the world and now the news and the Internet. I'm mentioning this story because his rights were violated. The FBI are using their freedom of press to post this picture all over and at the same time ruin the reputation of Llamazares. It reminded me of the homework assignment and how people abuse situations and other people's rights to further themselves. The FBI has yet to offer any kind of apology.

California Student Rights on Free Speech

As I was doing my Question of the Week for class I got to thinking something and decided to research it more. In the book when reading on the First Amendment rights of students it states that some states have expanded the rights given to students regarding free speech.

The link below will pull up a PDF that shows exactly what students can do within school or on campus when wanting to freely express their opinions about certain issues.

http://www.comdsd.org/pdf/hs_1.pdf

The only reason I point this out is because I kind of assumed that there wasn't a First Amendment violation of rights in the proposed scenario based on the Hazelwood ruling but reading the material on the link posted I'm wondering if there actually is a violation against the students.

Facebook and Internet Privacy

Most of us have heard many strange, almost outrageous, stories lately about individuals who have lost their jobs or faced disciplinary action based on the content of their social networking profiles. The offenders have specifically been placed in the spotlight for their pictures and/or online postings.

A story from November 2009 has been updated with new information, which brings greater exposure to the conflict between internet privacy and freedom of expression. Here is an excerpt of the story reported by CBS Atlanta:

"A former high school teacher is suing a north Georgia school district, alleging she was forced to resign over photos and expletives on her Facebook page. Ashley Payne, 24, claimed the Barrow County school district violated state labor law because she was never told she was entitled to a hearing…Payne resigned Aug. 27 after her principal questioned her about her Facebook page, which included photos of her holding wine and beer and an expletive. She had worked at the school for two years."

(Quote from http://www.cbsatlanta.com/news/21573759/detail.html)

Here are a couple of pictures, which were taken in Europe:



They are tourist shots of Payne on vacation in Europe, sitting at pubs and beer gardens. According to the Atlanta Journal Constitution (November 13, 2009), of 700 vacation photos, 10 were of her with alcohol. She was also chastised for her use of the word "b***h". The school is referring to when Payne posted that she was headed out to play "Crazy Bitch Bingo", a popular game played weekly at Joe’s On Juniper in Atlanta.

As of today, the deposition was released by Payne's lawyer, which reveals that the cause of all this drama was an anonymous e-mail, supposedly sent by a "concerned parent" who was disturbed by the teacher's photos and use of language. The message composer stated in the e-mail that the photos made Payne "an unfit role model for Barrow students." The principal of the school pushed Payne to resign by falsely informing her that she would be suspended or fired due to the concern of the author of the anonymous e-mail.

Also, Payne was told that the letter indicated that she permitted students to access her Facebook page. Payne said that was impossible since she had tight privacy settings and had never accepted a student as a friend. Payne alleges that she was told to consider resigning rather than face losing her teaching license.

The reason I mentioned this case is that it speaks to the need for society to examine the affects of online social networking, along with how much the content can and should affect people's lives. The teacher involved was engaging in activities after hours, on her own time, on vacation in another country. Another issue is that she was not informed that she was entitled to a hearing. This case is outrageous to me because a teacher's rights were violated; she was pushed to resign due to a letter that was sent from an individual who conveniently chose to remain anonymous. If unknowns have the ability to cause people to lose their jobs base on unfounded claims, then what other powers do they have? I believe that this is an issue of the First Amendment, and needs to be addressed before instances like these get even more chaotic and ridiculous.

PETA Uses First Lady's Image Without White House Consent

I have never been a huge PETA lover. Don’t get me wrong- I don’t condone the mistreatment of animals. However I don’t agree with PETA guerilla tactics. Therefore, I was kind of excited when I read the article featured in the New York Times “PETA Didn’t Get First Lady’s OK for Anti-Fur Ad. The recent anti- fur PETA campaign features Michelle Obama, Oprah Winfrey, Carrie Underwood and Tyra Banks. The ads appeared in Washington’s metro stations, magazines and Peat’s Web site. Michelle Obama’s image was used without her permission. The president of PETA, Ingrid Newkirk, said her organization chose not to get First Lady Obama’s consent for the anti-fur ad because the organization knows Mrs. Obama can’t make such an endorsement.

I found this article interesting because the issue deals with the right of privacy. Appropriation is a branch of the privacy law. Appropriation is the unauthorized commercial use of a person’s name or picture in an advertisement, poster, public relations or any other commercial context. To some the use of Michelle Obama’s image could be considered fair game because she is a public figure. However the unautherorized use of a picture to promote a product or a cause is a violation of the right of privacy and/ or the right of publicity. Under the privacy law PETA had no right to use First Lady Obama’s image without her consent.

Just as a side note PETA is urging the White House to stand against another unauthorized use. The Ringling Bros. circus recently debut their newest performer- elephant "Baby Barack." According to PETA the use of Obama's name for the elephant is more troubling then the Michelle Obama Ad. When in all reality both issues are complete opposites.

Nuremberg Files - More Research

The Nuremberg Files mentioned in class and on page 51 of our text book intrigued me so I searched the Internet for a little more information. We all know the outcome of the case, but what the book does not tell us is that not only was the website naming abortion doctors, but they were also posting pictures, addresses, phone numbers, drivers license plate numbers, social security numbers and even the names and birth dates of the doctors' spouses and children. Neighbors and friends of these doctors were encouraged to send in videotapes of them leaving their homes, driving, and doing day-to-day activities. At what point was the abuse of privacy brought into this case?

Ask God What Your Grade Is

I found an interesting case from last year involving a student at LA City College and freedom of speech and religion.

The student, Jonathan Lopez, wasn't allowed to finish his in-class speech against same-sex marriage. His professor disagreed with what the student was saying and called the student a "fascist bastard." When the student asked what his grade was, the professor replied, "Ask God What Your Grade Is."

The student, who is described as a Christian in the suit, has filed a lawsuit suit in the incident. He didn't appreciate being called a "fascist bastard" by the professor or the reference to God and his grade.

I think the student's freedom of speech and religion were violated. The professor in this speech class should have allowed the student to finish his speech. I think the student will win the case.

http://articles.latimes.com/2009/feb/16/local/me-speech16

Reminder- No class tonight

As one last reminder, we will not have class this week due to the holiday. Work on the Media Law Question of the Week instead, and I will see you all again next Monday. Enjoy your night off!

Media Law Question of the Week

Media Law Question of the Week

Given our discussion last week covering freedom of speech in schools and the Hazelwood v. Kuhlemeier case, what is your response to the following scenario:


Your cousin Andrea is the Student Editor of the student newspaper at East Beverly High. Although she is just a high school student, the burden of the entire operation ultimately rests on her shoulders. It is Andrea’s job to assign stories to student reporters, select photos taken by student photographers for print, and oversee the proper layout of the stories on the pages of the paper. With only one hour out of the regular school day allotted to this task, Andrea gets most of her work done after school.

For this week’s paper, student reporter Brandon interviewed Kelly, a student at East Beverly High. The story was about plastic surgery. Kelly’s opinion was solicited because she had had a nose job. But Brandon’s interviewing technique was unfocused and he wandered into a variety of other areas. During the questioning, Kelly let slip for the first time that another student, Steve, raped her the previous year. After reading Brandon’s notes from the interview, Andrea recognized that this was quite a scoop, considering Steve is very popular and has never been in any serious legal trouble before. Andrea’s final edit of the article included the full interview with Kelly.

The paper already went to print last night. This morning, the teacher assigned to oversee the paper saw Brandon’s article for the first time and immediately brought a copy of the paper to the Principal. The Principal, appalled by the subject matter and concerned for Kelly and Steve’s reputations, agreed that the article had to go. Since the paper had already been printed, the page with Brandon’s article was removed from every copy before distribution to the student body.

What do you think her rights are here, and what should she do?

For this first question, don’t worry about being ‘right’ or ‘wrong’. Just identify what issues you think are going on here and how what we discussed in class (or what you read in the book) applies in this case. Remember to keep your answer limited to one page. Email your answer before the start of class next week.

Thank you, and remember to try to have a little fun with it.

Team Presentations

As it states in our syllabus, each student must participate a small group to produce a presentation that will be delivered to the rest of the class on the last night of the semester. I have selected three broad categories for you to choose from. What your team does with these categories is up to you, but you must work together.

The categories are:

1) The First Amendment and the Internet

2) Copyright Law and the Internet

3) Personal Privacy and the Internet

As you can see, there is something of a theme going on here. But the categories are still broad enough that you will have enough room to do what you want, so long as you all work together and stay on topic. Email me your choice of topic sometime between now and next Sunday and I will tell everyone the results in class next week. We have 12 students enrolled, so I may need to adjust who is in what group based on how many people sign up for each category to get it to even out at four per group.

Take your time choosing, and remember that your personal research paper needs to be on a different topic than your team presentation topic.

Watch Out - Vulgar Comments Online Can Get You Fired!

http://www.stltoday.com/blogzone/the-editors-desk/the-editors-desk/2009/11/post-a-vulgar-comment-while-youre-at-work-lose-your-job/

This was quite the local controversy a few weeks ago when the social media editor of the St. Louis Post Dispatch asked readers the question, what is the craziest thing you’ve ever eaten? One commenter posted something vulgar, which I won’t repeat here, and the editor deleted the comment right away. Then when the guy reposted it, the editor tracked down where it came from, and it happened to be a school downtown. He forwarded the info to the school and the guy (a teacher) was fired from his job. There are a lot of different ethical questions raised here, but to me it brings to mind issues of free speech and how it seems as though some people have different standards of free speech when it comes to the internet. There are a lot of websites that allow comments to be posted beneath their stories. I think that if a web site allows this function, they should be aware that some posts might be a little off-color – it is only natural to expect that a few vocal people are going to take the opportunity to see their thoughts posted online and feel important for a minute or two. This has not gone to court yet, but I wouldn't be surprised if it does once the ex-teacher realizes he can't get another job.

It is interesting to think about the rise of social media, blogs, and the internet and how they fall under free speech. Many people out there admonished the editor for what he did. You can see the response in the comments section in the article I’ve posted. There is even a website out there that is strictly devoted to saying lots of really bad things about this editor. He has faced a lot of backlash and it is interesting to see what the future has in store for his career – and for internet free speech cases.

Recent Case Dealing with Copyright Infringement

Actually this dates back to October of 2009 but it's interesting and appropriate being that Chapter 6 is what we would be going over tomorrow if class was in session which focuses on copyright laws.

This case is interesting though because it deals with a a company, Excel Research, giving students the go ahead to copy a program only if it was for educational use but it's sounds like they failed to get permission from the publishers. The passage I found with this case is found on the link below.

http://counsel.cua.edu/Copyright/cases/cases.cfm

On page 257 in the text it talks about safe harbors of copyright infringement where it talks of the Internet and gives the impression that if the reproduction of copyrighted material is not for monetary gain that it is not an infringement, if I read that correctly but this case kind of adds a different thought into that statement.

The courts in the case talked about in the link I posted, Blackwell Publishing v. Excel Research, make it sound like that the defense given by Excel Research was thrown out because they didn't get permission from Blackwell to let students copy the software because the rights belonged to them and not Excel. I thought that was an interesting factor to the dispute that even though Excel was making no profit for okaying the copying of the software they were still committing some violations against some copyright infringement laws.

Kirby copyright case and free speech

http://robot6.comicbookresources.com/2010/01/kirby-family-attorneys-respond-to-marvel-lawsuit/ Presents a new legal battle regarding copyright law and the media. While copyright law has not yet been discussed in the graduate class, I feel that this will be a big case. While not completely similar to Superman's Siegel family vs DC/Time Warner case, both the Kirby heirs and the Siegel family have the same lawyer. The Kirby case may simply end with a settlement deal due to Disney (the new owners of Marvel) wanting to keep the full rights to the Kirby characters mentioned in the heirs claims. On the other hand like the Superman case it could stay in the courts for years, with neither side giving, up with or without settlements. No matter what happens this is a case that most likely will affect creator rights and copyright law.

Now regarding free speech, which is the recent topic covered in class, I feel that more free speech should be allowed in public schools such as minor curse words like crap. Crap which is a pretty harmless word when compared to other words should not be considered outside the rights of free speech. I do think racial slurs should be banned. Racial slurs are not political speech and too often they are presented in books, jokes, and other media sources that have no educational value of teaching it is wrong to hate someone for looking different. Major curse words like the f-word should be banned from the radio and public high schools on down to pre-school, but never college.

South Butt Parody Case

Last week on 1/6 I was reading the St. Louis Post and found an interesting story about a small T-shit company created by a local St. Louis High School student called "The South Butt". I had never heard of it and as I read the issue is regarding issues of free speech and making a parody.

Apparently there is another company called "North Face" that makes apparel as well and this high school students clothing line is a parody of it, to mock it or poke fun. This has actually went to court and there is a link I found on STLToday.com which is listed below if anyone wants to check it out.

http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/editorialcommentary/story/20e8a5cf90d0af188625769d008353a4?opendocument

Parody is actually mentioned in Chapter 6 where it sounds like the Supreme Court ruled that parody can be used fairly even though it can hold commercial purpose and copies the core of the original piece (The Law of Public Communications 261). So in my opinion it sounds like North Face may not have much of a case against South Butt.

Google is backing out of Chinese market

I just saw this article on the BBC entitled "Google May Pull out of China after Gmail Cyber Attack." Here's the link to read the full article: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8455712.stm. It's about how Google, who agreed to enter the Chinese market by conceding to China's censorship stipulations in 2006, (China is really bad about censoring it's people, at least in my humble opinion. All of the papers and media are completely state-run and controlled, and dissenters are not tolerated) is considering pulling out of the Chinese market because many of its gmail users, particularly those involved in human rights, have been "routinely accessed by third parties." Represenatives at Baidu, the top Chinese search engine, say it's just because Google is losing its market share and is not as successful in China as they are.

I found this article interesting because it really demonstrates the juxtaposition of the Chinese view on the rights of the media and the people's access to media compared to ours. The U.S. is probably one of the most interested in protecting speech and press rights, whereas the Chinese come from a very different perspective. To them, it's about protecting the state from the people, not the people from the state. The collective comes before the individual for them, wheras we arguably value indivualism more than anyone else in the world. This shows through in our takes on what the media is supposed to be and do.

New word of the day - orthogonal

Yes, I am a word person, so discovering a new word uttered by a law professor speaking before the Supreme Court piqued my interest.

The professor - Richard Friedman of the University of Michigan - used the term "orthogonal" when defining the scope of the confrontation clause, according to a posting on the ABA Journal online. It seems the mathematical term was being used to mean two propositions were at right angles or unrelated or irrelevant.

Justice Antonin Scalia suggested that the new word should be used in the opinion on the case they were hearing. I say, why not use it in a research paper, especially a media law class like this!

Carolyn Olson

Update on mold comment made on Twitter

There isn't much new in the case involving Chicagoan Amanda Bonnen who used her Twitter account to tell 20 followers that there was mold in her apartment owned by Horizon Group Management. She tweeted this in May, and on July 27, Horizon filed a $50,000 defamation lawsuit against her. I haven't found anything else on multiple sites about the case.

The issue is if tweeting is considered publishing or is it just a conversation between friends in a public forum. Those 140 characters could cost Amanda Bonnen $50,000. Tweeting is publishing, to me, but the company has made a PR blunder in pursing it.

Carolyn Olson

Welcome

Welcome to the Spring 1 class of MEDC 5350 Media Organizations and Regulations at Webster University. Invitations to this semester's students have been sent out and you should be able to post once you follow the links within your invite.